Swing Life Away
by WriterInTheMaking101
Summary: Aftermath of season five finale; because I can't wait for season six and had to pretend like I had some control over these characters.


**I'm going insane!! As if they ended season 5 like that, so, so very cruel! Just a little oneshot, sort of what I would like to see next season (i.e. Izzie surviving, George dying.) I love George, don't get me wrong! But I love Izzie more! Enjoy :)**

They don't say anything for a while, because there are no words they can use. George, their George, double oh seven, (Meredith can't hear them say it, can't walk past the poster for that James Bond movie, without feeling like she's going to pass out, without feeling his fingers on her palm, tracing the numbers out for her, feeling her heart stop and her pulse quicken) Bambi. Whatever.. he is, or was, George. And now, he's gone.

Izzie is blaming herself, doing it quietly though, because if she says it out loud it becomes real. And then she becomes that annoying, clingy girl that must make everything about herself. Izzie has been that girl before; she will not be that girl right now, the girl that throws herself onto George's dead body, the girl that sighs and says, wistfully, 'I could have stopped it.' She can't be that girl again, and so she keeps everything to herself. When people shoot her sorry glances, when Alex reaches for her hand or Cristina looks at her, a little fearfully, like she's going to break in two, she smiles, sadly, and nods. "It's fine," she says.

(Two months ago, she and Alex had a conversation about how the word fine is not really a word. It's a placeholder, a stupid placeholder, and you can be damn sure that anyobody who says they're fine is not fine at all.)

Alex is torn, right down the middle, like the security blanket he used to haul around when he was a kid, until he got too big, and it got too shredded up to be considered a blanket anymore. He remembers his dad throwing it into the garbage, and the way he was too proud to go out and get it, rummaging through the Gummi Worm boxes and the beer bottles. Alex is torn, like that blanket, because half of him is destroyed; he's George. He's not supposed to be the guy that's hit by a bus saving a stranger (isn't there a movie about something like that?) and if George **is **that guy, then he is also the guy that survives, the guy that beats the odds and has his heart start up again, the guy that marries the girl he saved.

And then the other half of Alex is rejoicing. The other half of him looks at Izzie and wants to cry, because **she **is still there. She's alive and she's breathing. She can laugh and cry and change the channel on the TV and eat the crappy hospital food. Alex does not believe in God, or whatever, hasn't since he was seven years old. But even he, the biggest of non believers, knows it is a miracle that Izzie is still alive. And so, for that, he is grateful.

Meredith is walking around, and it doesn't feel real. It's one thing to know from the beginning, when you look in his eyes or hold his hand, that John Doe is not in fact John Doe, but is in fact George O'Malley, your friend, the guy you had a one night stand with, the guy you trust and care about so much. But it's another thing entirely to go about your business, with a mild pain in your heart when you think about John Doe, not knowing who he really is. Maybe, briefly, you think about him having a wife or a couple kids. And then that same guy, that stranger, goes and he tells you, in the simplest way possible, who he is.

("He's calling me 007.")

Cristina simply does not understand. People have called her a cold, heartless bitch, a robot, uncaring and selfish. And she can hold her name to each and every one of those titles; things she has done in her past, things she said and thought. She's not like that anymore, she knows that; she hugged Meredith for God's sakes, she told Owen she loved him. And usually, she's okay with that. She's okay with not being that person that hates touching and kissing, laughing and.. and caring.

But right now, a part of her wants to go back to that person. She envies that woman, that woman that let herself love nobody and care about even fewer. She doesn't want to be that person that cares about Owen joining (or not) joining the army, the woman that cares whether he got a good night's sleep or not. But most of all, she doesn't want to be the person that is absolutely heartbroken about the death of stupid George O'Malley.

They all come together, at some point (they don't know the time, they've stopped keeping track) and they sit; Izzie in the hospital bed, Alex and Meredith have pulled up chairs beside her, Cristina is sitting on a stool, down by Izzie's feet.

And suddenly, she can't help it. "It was supposed to be me," Izzie says. "I was the one that with metastatic melanoma and the brain tumor and the stupid memory thing.. it was supposed to be. It should have been me. I signed the DNR, I.. I was ready. It's.. George didn't sign anything, except the sign up sheet for the army."

"When you sign up for the army," Cristina offers, "you're, I mean technically, you're saying that you're willing to die for your country and that.. you're going to stick it out. Maybe.. what George signed was sort of like what you did."

"O'Malley died for a stranger," says Alex. "A goddamn stranger that he had never even seen before."

"When you die for your country, you die for people you don't know," Cristina reasons. "Millions of people you don't know."

Izzie shudders. "I don't understand," she says. "How this happened. How.. it's.."

Meredith nods. "I couldn't even tell in his eyes, it was him. I.. I looked at him, and I didn't know who he was," she tilts her head slightly sideways. "I've known him for almost six years. I.. I should have been able to tell who he was."

"Mer," Izzie consoles, "knowing who he was wouldn't have changed anything."

"Yes it would have," Meredith fires back. "It would have changed the fact that someone knew who he was, that people could.. talk to him and make him feel okay."

"You held his hand."

"Because," Meredith's words are like ice cubes, "I felt sorry for him. I held his hand because I was sure he was going to die and I thought maybe he wanted somebody there, not because I knew it was George."

And then it's sort of like a chain reaction; the tears and the silence and the way they all reach for one another's hands at the exact same moment. They're all connected, touching and comforting. Alex feels Meredith's hair on his shoulder, Izzie's cheek, Cristina's fingers. They cry and they mourn the loss of someone who, no matter what the dictionary definition is, has become a part of their family.


End file.
